


ScharLacroix

by ManifestMerlin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, In the middle of the two, Intrigue, Major Original Character(s), Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Season/Series 03, Pre-Season/Series 04, Rating May Change, References to Shakespeare, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 16:57:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14061345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManifestMerlin/pseuds/ManifestMerlin
Summary: “Coran I thought we weren’t leaving for a few more days?”“Why yes Keith you're correct!”“Then why did you open up a wormhole? And why one so small?”It really was a wormhole, about three times the size of a galra drone ship, just barely big enough for the green lion to fit through. And as he watched, Keith saw a sleek, white ship come through the wormhole fast. On a direct collision course with the castle. The castle which had the particle barrier down. Keith didn’t have time for a warning as the ship crashed into the castle from the right in a great ball of flame that shook the whole castle.





	ScharLacroix

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my new Voltron fic, please please please gov em some constructive criticism in the comments and I hope you enjoy this story!

Keith was in a bad mood. Even if he was finally getting used to the Black Lion, Lotor still had the comet and they weren’t making any attempts to get it back. Allura had given them the week off to rest before they went back to taking territory and going on diplomatic meetings. He had spent the first two days training until she cut off power to the training deck while telling him to actually rest for the remainder of the week. Pidge had ignored him when he asked if she had anything for him to help with and he had no intention of participating in whatever new spa treatment Lance had made. He supposed that was how he ended up helping Hunk gather minerals from the asteroid belt they were hiding in.

“Why are we doing this again?” he questioned.

“Oh just in case we need to repair anything,” Coran spoke from Black’s communicator, “As I always say it’s good to keep a bit of everything on hand!”

“Hey Keith, this piece is too big mind cutting it out for me?” Hunk said.

“On my way.” he replied before activating the jaw blade and slicing apart the piece of what he guessed was iron.

“Excellent!” Coran exclaimed as Hunk put the ore in Yellow’s cargo hold, “That's the last of them!”

But as he and Hunk started going back to the castle Keith caught a flash of blue in the corner of his eye that made him pause.

“Coran I thought we weren’t leaving for a few more days?”

“Why yes Keith you're correct!”

“Then why did you open up a wormhole? And why one so small?”

It really was a wormhole, about three times the size of a galra drone ship, just barely big enough for the green lion to fit through. And as he watched, Keith saw a sleek, white ship come through the wormhole. Fast. On a direct collision course with the castle. The castle which had the particle barrier down. Keith didn’t have time for a warning as the ship crashed into the castle from the right in a great ball of flame that shook the whole castle.

“Coran!”

The comms were silent for a few moments that felt like forever before Coran responded.

“Don’t worry yourself I’m all right, not sure about the poor soul who just crashed into us though.”

“Uhhh guys? I think they’ll be fine, the ship is still intact.” Hunk said.

Keith didn’t believe it but when the smoke began to clear it was obvious that the mystery ship didn’t have a scratch. In fact it had dented the castle where it had crashed.

“Could you two pull that in with you? I’d like to get it examined.”

As they towed in the ship Keith got a better look at it. The ship was white with blue circuit-like lines running across it in symmetrical patterns. It looked like it had a name once but the lettering was too faded for him to even recognize the script. The most interesting part of the ship was the weaponry, mostly for the sheer amount of it, the front of the ship was equipped with what looked to be a Gatling gun, and the wings had a row of four blasters mounted on them. Keith couldn’t see into the cockpit, since the screen was completely opaque from the outside, giving them even less clue of where the ship came from.

As Keith exited the Black Lion he noticed that everyone else was already there, probably already informed by Coran of the whole situation. Everyone else seemed more or less intrigued by the strange ship, with the sole exception of Coran whose expression had uncharacteristically gone unreadable.

“Wow this thing is huge up close!” Hunk exclaimed.

“You sure this is the thing that crashed into the castle?” Lance asked skeptically.

“Yeah, why is there something you wanna say?” Keith responded.

“Well of course!” Pidge interrupted, “If this thing crashed into the ship then shouldn't there be some damage? I mean there's not even a scratch!”

“Hey I was gonna say that!”

“I guess we’ll figure it out after we analyze it, right princess?”

“I do hope so Shiro. Oh, Coran can you get started on that right away?”

“No need Princess Allura, I’m afraid I already know what this is…”Coran trailed off.

“Afraid?” Allura said, confused, “Coran just what exactly is this ship?”

“Well, this is an altean Tilraun, a spacefaring vessel stuffed aplenty with experimental technologies. They were sent out with particularly dangerous or destructive inventions to uninhabited planets in case one of them turned out to cause a massive explosion or release a planet-ending plague.” Coran replied nervously.

“Are you sure? I don’t remember anything about research ships back on Altea.”

“Well they really weren’t used too terribly often. Not only was there not often a large amount of dangerous, experimental technologies around, but in order to send them to suitable planets all Tilrauns were equipped with teludavs. Alteans capable of operating a teludav were already in short supply, and since the teludav had to be shrunk to fit on the ship, it took far more energy than average. Altea would be lucky if it sent out one every generation.”

“If this is a scientific research vessel then why was it so armoured and outfitted with such heavy weaponry?” Keith interjected. “How do you even know that that's what this is? It looks like it could be any other ship!”

“Answering that is rather simple really: the weaponry and armour would obviously be part of what made the ship experimental, no reason to send out a normal ship when you could test out the tech already on board and a new type of ship after all! As for your second question...” Coran began to look downward as he trailed off.

“Coran? What’s wrong?” Shiro turned to ask.

Coran sighed, “This Tilraun was actually the last one ever sent out, during King Alfor’s reign, not long after the first rise of Voltron.”

“WHAT?”

“Allura, please, my ears…”

“I apologize Lance but that is not possible, how would I have never heard of this!”

“Well princess the ship was sent out only a few deca-phoebs after your birth, you weren’t old enough to know anything about it!”

“Oh…” Allura said sheepishly, “I’m sorry Coran.”

“Wait a minute…” Pidge suddenly said as everyone turned to her expectantly, “If this thing needs magical energy to fly, does that mean the pilot is altean?”

Allura and Coran suddenly turned to each other shocked.

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Coran said quietly.

“Well we shouldn’t get our hopes up,” Allura said halfheartedly, “The galran druids can manipulate magical energy as well after all.”

“Only one way to find out right?” Keith said. “Let's take a look at our mystery pilot. We don’t all need to go in right now so how about just me, Coran, and Lance?”

“Why you three?” Hunk asked.

“Coran seems to know the most about this ship, Lance and I are there in case the pilot isn’t friendly.” Keith responded as everyone nodded in agreement.

It wasn’t hard to get the door open after locating it on the bottom of ship. As it swung down to make a ramp Coran, Keith, and Lance walked up to see a fairly spacious interior. The ship had what looked to be several different cabinets with various bottles labeled in altean, although it looked like they could hold far more than what there actually was. There were also empty cages on countertops next to what appeared to be a filing cabinet on the right side. On the left was a food goo machine like on the castle with a single person bed directly next to it. Lastly the space was dominated by a specialized healing pod set in the back wall, directly opposite the cockpit. The pilot seat wasn’t that different from the ones in the lions but was fully black. The occupant of said seat was slumped over and resting their head on a black duffel bag in their lap. The pilot was wearing a shaded helmet that obscured their face, a pair of flight gloves, and a familiar jacket.

“They’re from the GARRISON?” Lance practically screamed.

The pilot was wearing the garrisons signature uniform from the orange and white jacket down to the brown pants.

“But… that would mean…” Keith began.

“They’re from earth…” Lance finished, “They’re human…”

“Well, our guest seems to be incapacitated as of right now so why don’t you two take them over to the medbay, doesn’t look like they’ll need a healing pod but you never know!” Coran interrupted.

“What about the bag?” Lance said, gesturing towards the pilot’s lap.

“I’ll  grab that, just take our new friend to the medbay.” Coran responded.

Lance put the duffel bag on the floor before picking the pilot up the arms while nodding to Keith to grab the legs. He did so and as they walked backwards out of the ship he heard gasps of surprise from the other paladins.

“Is something wrong?” Allura asked, with a puzzled look on her face.

“Th-They’re from Earth!” Pidge stuttered out.

“So I was right Princess! Humans can use magical energy as well!” Coran said walking out of the ship behind them while holding the duffel bag in his arms like it was a plate. 

“What are you talking about?” Hunk asked.

“Oh those books of your history that Pidge lent me were quite informative. Allura didn’t believe me when I told her that humans had magic, but if this one flew the Tilraun then it proves me right!”

This prompted Shiro to turn to Pidge with his arms crossed and eyebrow raised, “Pidge? What books did you give him?”

“I just gave him the books! I didn’t say they were history!” Pidge said, indignant.

“Pidge… Which books?” Shiro said disapprovingly.

“Harry Potter…” Pidge said sheepishly.

“Where did you even-?” Shiro asked exasperatedly.

“I had the PDF files on my laptop when we left earth.” Pidge explained.

“Suffice it to say Coran, those books are fiction.” Hunk apologized.

“But if humans can’t use magic then how did he fly- how did the ship even get to-” Coran said.

“Guys? Can we talk about this AFTER getting them to the medbay? Me and Lance are the ones who have to carry him!” Keith interjected.

“Oh yes of course, apologies Keith.” Allura said, “Although you must know that this is a strange situation we have on our hands.”

“Well we can discuss the strangeness of the situation once we’ve put him down!” Lance grunted.

They made their way to the medbay with few problems, everyone was strangely quiet the whole trip from the hangar. After they got to the medbay, Coran rolled out what looked like an altean cot. After laying the pilot down on the cot the first thing Coran did was remove their helmet.

“Well he’s human alright.” Keith scoffed.

The boy on the cot had a slightly thin face and pale skin. His lips were cracked and his black hair looked like it hadn’t been touched in days, ending just above below the start of his neck. His eyes were closed and it could have looked like he was sleeping if it wasn’t for the grimace stuck on his face and the clenching of practically every muscle in his body that made him look incredibly tense. 

“Well thankfully it looks like he won’t need to be put in a pod.” Coran said startling Keith out of his examination. “It looks like he collapsed due to lack of food and water more than anything, Hunk could you prepare something for when he wakes up?” 

“On it Coran.” Hunk said as he left for the kitchen.

“What about the crash?” Shiro asked, arms crossed, “Any damage from that?”

“Other than the castle? Doesn’t look like it.” Coran replied. “Could you and Pidge get started on fixing that?”

“Of course we can,” Shiro said before turning to Pidge as they began walking away,  “And while doing that I will be reminding you not to pass off Harry Potter as historical fact.”

Before they left Keith could’ve sworn he heard Pidge grumbling about Shiro using his ‘leader voice’.

“If you guys don’t need me then i’m going to go train.” Keith said before beginning to walk away.

“Hold on just a tick number 4!” Coran shouted, “We need you to be here when he wakes up!”

“Why’s that?”

“We can’t have our guest waking up without the leader of this operation here to greet him! That includes you Princess you’re in charge of the castle after all.” Coran said as Allura tried to make a stealthy retreat before both she and Keith turned back with a sigh.

“I wonder what he brought for this space trip of his?” Lance said lifting the duffel bag off the floor.

“Lance! Don’t you know that it’s rude to open other people’s belongings without their permission?” Allura scolded.

“Well yeah, but it’s not like he can give us permission right now!” 

“We don’t have anything better to do.” Keith said, “Might as well take a look.”

Lance seemed to take Allura’s resigned sigh as a go ahead for unzipping the bag. As the four of them peered in they saw a few sets of folded clothes in various shades of purple, a large stack of books, what looked like a locked diary separate from the other books, bottled water, more of the same altean medicine bottles from the ship, files emblazoned with the garrison’s logo, a steel box with a combination lock, and most strange of all a hard drive without a laptop to use it with. 

“Wonder what his favorite color is?” Keith asked sarcastically.

“We saw what’s in the bag now can we close it before he wakes up?” Allura said.

“Fine, Fine.” Lance said as he rezipped the bag closed.

They all waited quietly after that. If it wasn’t for the faint rise and fall of his chest Keith would have thought that the pilot had died. It was four vargas later that the pilot began to stir. Two vargas earlier Shiro and Pidge, the later looking extremely irritated after what Keith could only guess was an earful from Shiro, had returned from fixing the castle and had promptly left with Lance to go help Hunk with dinner. Keith, Allura, and Coran were the only ones there to witness as the boy finally sat up and clutched his head with his left hand.

“Hello there! How are you feeling?” Coran asked jovial as always. 

As the boy whipped his head around to stare at them and look around Keith got a chance to see his eyes. They were slightly deeper than Allura’s but still a bright aquamarine. 

“Not feeling up to talking I suppose? That’s fine. Would you like to come with us to the dining hall? You should really eat something.” Coran continued.

The boy only nodded and stumbled a little as he swung off of the cot. Maintaining his blank, expression the entire time. 

“Let me get that for you,” Keith stopped him as he tried to pick up his duffel bag, “I’m Keith by the way.”

The boy only nodded, before turning to follow Allura and Coran with Keith trailing behind. The boy kept looking around as they moved through the halls of the castle making the trip from the medbay to the dining room feel longer than it actually was. When they did get to the dining room they found Shiro, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk all sitting at the table eating what looked like soup made from some of the vegetables they had been gathering while planet hopping. The boy sat in between Coran and Allura while Keith took the last bowl and sat down as well. As soon as he did he noticed that everyone was watching the pilot, who was scarfing down the soup as fast as he could. By the time he had finished he was looking much better than before and some slight color had returned to his face.

“Feeling better?” Shiro asked after an uncomfortable silence.

The boy nodded before continuing to look around the room.

“I’m guessing you have questions?” Coran asked warily.

“Which one is this?” The boy asked in a voice that was strangely clear and refined despite having almost starved to death.

“Which what?” Pidge pushed.

“Afterlife.” The boy said as if it were the most normal thing in the world as everyone’s face changed to varying degrees of shock. “I mean I suppose it could be heaven but I was a fairly average person while I lived so I think I would probably go somewhere else. This could also be Valhalla since my bag came with me and I felt like I was burning before I lost consciousness, like how vikings burned their belongings on funeral pyres with them so that it would go to Valhalla too, but then again I didn’t die in battle.” The boy put his hand on his chin thoughtfully, “I can not rightly say… what a strange situation I find myself in…” he muttered to himself.

“Wait so you think you’re dead?” Lance broke the silence.

“Of course.” The boy said with a dismissive wave of his hand, “Last thing I remember was going into the light while starving to death. Now I find myself seated at a table with a who is who of missing persons and two people who could be angels, valkyries, or any other manner of guides to the time after death.”

“Whos who?” Hunk repeated solemnly, “Missing Persons?”

“Takashi Shirogane-Pilot: Crash on the kerberos mission, Hunk Garrett-Engineer: Disappeared from dorm one night and presumed dead, Pidge Gunderson-Communications: Disappeared from dorm one night and presumed dead again, Lance McClain-Pilot: Disappeared from dorm one night and presumed dead yet again, and Keith Kogane-ExPilot: Reported missing from desert home by mailman and presumed dead one final time.” The boy said gesturing at each of the paladins in turn.

“You aren’t dead!” Keith finally shouted and stood up.

The boy turned to raise an eyebrow at him, “Then where exactly am I?”

“You are aboard the Castle of Lions, the base of operations for the Paladins of Voltron.” Allura said standing regally, “I am Princess Allura of Altea and this is Coran.” Coran waved as he was mentioned.

“Altea is not any country I have ever heard of what are you talking about?” 

Shiro cleared his throat, “Allura and Coran are some of the last living Alteans.”

“They’re aliens.” Lance clarified.

The boy looked around again looking mildly shocked before looking towards Shiro thoughtfully, “ _ Mon dieu… _ ” he whispered, awed, “You know I suppose I should’ve realized something was off when they said an ace pilot made a fatal pilot error. You also look quite different from the picture in the obituary.”

“I don’t believe we ever got your name?” Shiro prompted.

“Quinn Lacroix, Galaxy Garrison medical division.” he said as he stood with a boy.

“Medical division!?” Pidge asked incredulously, “But how? I thought you had to be at least 22 with a Phd to even get considered! How old are you?”

“I’m eighteen and a half, I was getting my second Phd through the Garrison, an exception to the rule: a medical prodigy.” Quinn said with a hint of pride.

“SECOND?” Pidge shouted.

“Yup, first was medicine, just had to take the final and i’d have surgery too.” 

“That’s incredible!”

“Thank you very much Mr. Gunderson.”

“It’s actually Holt, Katie Holt, Pidge is fine though.”

Quinn seemed to stop at that before quickly regaining his composure.

“So basically I am on a castle that also happens to be a mobile space station that is piloted by five people who were presumed dead and two aliens from a lost race?”

“Basically.” Hunk repeated.

“Lovely…” Quinn said exasperatedly.

“This is nice and all but I was wondering if you could tell us what you were doing on that ship?” Allura interjected.

“Allura please he must be confused to end up on a random spaceship after thinking he just died give him some time-” Coran began.

“Coran don’t you want to know as well?” she said, fixing him with a gaze that Keith hadn’t seen from the princess before.

Coran only nodded in response.

“Oh yes, that.” Quinn said, “Could I have my bag first before I explain?”

“Knock yourself out.” Keith responded outstretching the bag so Quinn could swing it over his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Quinn said before ruffling through its contents and sighing in relief, “ _ Dieu merci,  _ its all still here. So you wanted to know about the ship?”

“Yes please.” Allura said, practically giddy.

“Well to put it simply I stole it from the garrison.” Quinn said before turning ever so slightly sheepish, “Although it sort of just happened really, like an accident, I didn’t plan on stealing it.”

“How did you accidentally steal an alien spaceship?” Keith asked shocked.

“Well you see I had actually gone to get this,” Quinn said pulling out the hard drive, “But then I had to make a getaway and I came upon the ship in a hangar separate from the rest of the compound. I saw a bunch of pill bottles on a desk with some files that looked important so I decided to take those too. After that I ran onto the ship and started flying it.” Quinn began counting on his fingers, “That was four days ago?”

“Four days ago!?” Shiro asked, “I thought you could survive up to three weeks without food?”

“That’s a good point…” Quinn said putting his hand back on his chin, “I don’t know exactly why I couldn’t last as long as I should have. I suppose it is just one more mystery”

“So you went in to steal garrison intel and just ‘decided’ to take the medicine and paper files along with it?” Pidge snicked.

“What happened next?” Keith asked while fixing her with a glare.

“How long has it been since I arrived?” Quinn asked.

“Around five vargas.” Coran chimed in.

“Ten and a half hours.” Lance supplied at Quinn’s slightly confused look. 

“Well about ten and a half hours ago I noticed the blue orbs on the armrests starting to glow blue, I was about to hit the asteroid belt and I felt ready to collapse, so since I had nothing to lose I put my hands on them and then I saw this blue light open up in front of me. The ship was moving fast but by the time I made contact I passed out.”

“The ‘light’ would have been the wormhole generated by your ship. I guess it must have had enough residual energy left for a jump.” Coran explained.

“Why’d you need that hard drive so badly anyways? Whose information is it?” Pidge asked.

Quinn somehow became more expressionless, “Iverson’s. As for why, well i’m afraid that's fairly personal. It’s not like I can actually look at the data anyways since it’s all encrypted.”

“Why did you re-encrypt the information after downloading it from Iverson’s computer?” Pidge pushed.

“Oh you misunderstand. This is Iverson’s hard drive. I ripped it out of his computer since I didn’t have the password.”

“You... ripped it straight out of his computer…” Pidge said slowly as she doubled over in laughter, “A eighteen year old who was almost to his second Phd, resorted to ripping a hard drive straight out of a computer.”

“I had no other choice!” Quinn protested.

“I can probably unencrypt it for you if you want.” Pidge replied as her laughter began to die down, “It would take me a while but I could do it.”

“Could you reall-” Quinn began excitedly before becoming reserved once again, “No, no I should probably leave soon anyways. It isn’t right for me to impose on you all while you are doing-whatever it is that you all are doing.”

“Well I’m not sure how you would get back right now but you should stay the night at least.” Coran began, “In the morning you can learn exactly what it is we all do! I have plenty of good stories to tell!”

“Well I do quite like stories.” Quinn said, a ghost of a smile dancing on his face for just a second.

“Tomorrow we can also go through the logs of the Tilraun to see how it got to Earth.” Allura said.

“Keith I think the room next to you is empty, could you lead him over there?” Shiro asked.

“Sure thing.” Keith said as he got up and walked towards his room with Quinn directly behind him. 

They walked in silence though Keith couldn’t help but feel as though Quinn was boring holes right through whatever he looked at whether that was the walls of the castle or the back of Keith’s head.

“So this is it.” Keith said once they arrived to the empty bedroom.

“Thank you very much.” Quinn replied,  _ still  _ perfectly composed. 

“Hey I had a question,” Keith began, “Are you.. okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well you just aren’t reacting to this situation like I thought you might. You’re handling the aliens and the giant castle spaceship pretty well.” Keith said awkwardly. 

“I’ve seen stranger to be frank.” Quinn shrugged.

“What could be stranger than aliens?”

“Classified.” Quinn responded with that same wry smile from earlier.

“Oh by the way what language were speaking at the dining table? I’m just a bit curious”

“Oh? It’s french.” 

“Alright then good night.” Keith replied with a nod.

“Bonne nuit…” Quinn said before slipping through the door and closing it with a soft hiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes  
> 1\. The title is a pun off of the french last name Lacroix (You know this if you've played over watch) and the german word for scarlet-scharlachrot. Although the title is subject to change.   
> 2.Quinn is french. (May or may not be an excuse to use my limited knowledge of the language)  
> I don't know when the next chapter will be ready since I have another wip I want to get ready to post and I have some other prior obligations where writing is concerned but it will have the advertised "References to Shakespeare".


End file.
